I. Mr. Gold

Napoleon conquered and Gold seethed.

He'd never sought glory, had no need of further riches, and yet found himself (for Neal's sake) bitterly embroiled in the déclassé toil of intelligence-gathering. That was a laugh in itself – English intelligence. As if that herd of kitchen-cats in over-tight frock coats could be classified as a spy-ring. Their officers were about as well informed of the conflict as the old, mad King – God save him – and the rest of it fell down to a few good men in the Royal Navy. Perhaps Napoleon would do them all a service and drop dead of apoplexy.

The old wig-headed powder-puffs, old faces unchanged since his own youth, hadn't even sensed la Terreur before heads rolled in the streets, and the younger generation – the Pinks – hadn't even enough sense to order-up clothes that fitted them. Was it to be the burden of one sensible generation, grown up on horror stories of the French atrocities and suspicion in the ballroom to set things right? It was a steep price, almost too steep; the fervid panic of paranoia and heartbreak had nearly devoured him the first time.

Gold had been a young gentleman then, newly married to a French refugee on whom he'd doted all his pities, and whom he hoped might come to love him for more than her security. She'd vanished the very moment her passports were in order, eloped with some merchant-mercenary, leaving just him and the baby. The divorce had cost him a pretty penny, but at least Millicente had given him Neal. It was a mercy, really; he wasn't sure Neal could've forgiven him if he'd turned in his mother for High Treason left her to hang at the Old Bailey.

They might have lived peacefully, well rid of any continental interests, save for Neal's blasted fit of patriotism. He'd flog the man who'd commissioned the lad to within an inch of his life if he ever met him on the street. Was his son to perish in the wake of some bleeding Corsican with the gall to call himself an Emperor? The devil could take Napoleon and his half of Russia with him for all Gold cared, but his boy – his only son – had donned the red coat against all sensibility, out of some woeful fit of moral duty, and Gold would see the world hang if the boy was not returned in one piece.

Neal, like his mother, run off in the night. And his son had the gall to call him coward! Lud, but it chaffed. A man of one and forty had no business enlisting as an officer, nor did his only son and heir, yet that's precisely what Neal Bartholomew Gold had done. At three and twenty, his life was forfeit for a daft cause, mandated by a Regent-King. Even now, Gold knew that he would recall the boy if he could, but it was not within his influence. Instead, he found himself doing the only thing that he could to help his boy's cause: conspiracy.

It was the guise of the rake which suited him, dressed to the nines in a tightly-tailored frock of red brocade, a devilishly daring cravat of gold – folded to emulate one of those demmed Brummel monstrosities – and breeches which cupped him rather tighter than he liked, of the requisite crème linen. The boots, and the boots alone, he could tolerate – good, Corinthian leather; the boots might, in fact, prove to be the highlight of his evening – it certainly was not his companion's dinner conversation.

Mrs. Millcroft, drat her, had seen to pair him with the notoriously lush Mrs. Lacey, a woman whose base manner at table could only be forgiven in light of her vigor for billiards. Her husband, the Colonel, was – of course – not permitted in decent company to escort his own wife to table, which Gold found to be something of a mercy. As bawdy as that gentleman was, Gold preferred the taciturn, (but lovely) dullards of the lady.

When forced to speak, she sounded as though she must be either the stupidest of her sex or the cleverest; when Gold imagined that her disinterested, sighing responses – only after sufficient prodding to rouse a bear in winter – were rather more at her companions' expense than her own, her company became almost tolerable. Certainly it was preferable to Miss Clime, whose voice would begin over the first course and run at a gallop until the footmen had cleared the cheese plates – but only by a small margin.

Private parties were, on the whole, disgustingly dull, but someone in attendance at the Millcroft household was undeniably guilty of passing information exposing the English ranks, and it was now down to Gold to suss the culprit out. Given the speed and efficiency at which word slouched along in the country, he doubted the mission would make much never mind – Wellington merely liked to feel himself useful. So he'd sent a gentleman to a gentleman's home to blunder about the truth until one or both parties stumbled.

To be doing anything – anything at all, no matter how trivial – was preferable to nothing. It was for Neal, whose nothings – no letters, no word – struck him like stones.

In attendance at the Millcroft soiree this weekend, he counted a total of thirty, in addition to the eponymous household. However, only a handful of those were regular attendees at the orgies, and so it was on them which he would focus. Gold wished he was not so often among the patrons of these same parlors and drawing rooms, but such was his lot, and his quarry was sly to have hid under his nose for so long – though he still held some hope that they were both operating in the blind.

Of all the gouty men with their mistresses and wives, only seven remained likely in Gold's mind: Sir Keith Reeve, a squire to some cow-pat in Nottingham and a notorious drunkard in need of coin; Colonel George Lacey, a gambling man and a dueler retired from the military around the time of Napoleon's uprising; his wife, Mrs. Lacey, the undeniably lovely, low-born French woman who found a suspicious sort of wit in her wine; Lord Spencer Nolan, a severe baron with half of Parliament in hand, but who otherwise kept his widower's temperance and severity; his son, Sir James, a dandy whose tailor bills and debts had quadrupled in Napoleon's wake; Sir James' long-time lover, Miss Jacqueline Clime – a mushroom if ever he'd met one, and an actress with ambitions to climb; and finally his hostess, Mrs. Cora Millcroft – aided, no doubt, by her milquetoast husband, Sir Henry. (Gold found it both a blessing and mercy their girl, Miss Millcroft, had been away at school from the tender age of sixteen, lest she transform into the unfortunate image of either one of them.)

He did not like his odds of success one ruddy bit, but liked even less the possibility that Neal's platoon would be out-maneuvered by anyone whom he held in such contempt. None of the meandering ponces with whom he dined that evening had the mark of the mastermind, yet there was irrefutably an agent of the Emperor among them. The problem Gold had encountered in this rat-warren of iniquity, notorious for its lechery and profanity, was that each of his suspects had something to gain – too much, in some cases, but they could not all be guilty.

II. Sir Reeve

"Oh, Madame…" Mr. Reeve moaned, pressing his whiskery cheek closer to the gorgeous bit of woman he'd managed to corner. Mrs. Lacey had enchanted him the very moment he saw her, though he could not quite remember when they'd met or what it was that drew him toward her, and her fool husband had wagered and lost her in a game of cards. He was owed a night of the man's marital rights, and meant to collect in one of the Millcroft's many bedrooms; the woman herself, though, had already rebuked him thrice.

"You've snuff on your nostril and lips, Sir," she replied. He hastened to sweep them clean with his shirt-cuff. Lud, he'd forgotten to check after his last dip into the box – one always had to check when one's hands were prone to shake.

"A drink, then?" he offered, proffering his own glass of whiskey.

She liked a drink, wasn't stuffy like those other ladies in their assembly halls, done up in doilies of white chiffon, sipping tea and champagne. Mrs. Lacey wore blue (the best gowns cut in the most daring styles, sans petticoat and pelisse, so the outline of long legs and bare, slender arms might always be seen) and enjoyed the grape, and if that wasn't proof of her hot, French blood yearning to be touched… Yet she refused him his due, and turned up that delicate nose at his cup. Perhaps he should have chosen her particular favorite, a full-bodied, white wine? But wine tended to sour his stomach.

"Don't tempt that brute of yours to beat you again," he begged, pressing closer to the column of her neck for her sake. "You know I'm owed you, Isabelle, and I do not like to see you bruise…"

"I know no such thing, and acknowledge no such claim," she said, going still in his arms as he strove to make love to her against the very wall. It could be so much nicer in a well-fitted bedchamber, with a feather mattress and satin tick, but he'd take his hours as he could – she'd held his eye (while he'd held none of her) for far too long.

"There's a good girl," he whispered. She'd capitulate gracefully, thank God, and she'd enjoy him – he'd make her like it, instead of mauling the creature like the Colonel…

"Sir Reeve," a voice with a brogue interrupted from behind him, "a word, if you please. I do hope I'm not interrupting – it's a demmed nuisance, interruption."

"Ain't it just," Reeve groaned.

He knew that voice, it belonged to a whippish, lean Scotsman with a reputation for beating his inferiors ruthlessly with an ebony and gold-gilt cane. The disruption broke Isabelle's stillness, and she'd already slipped away before he thought of what to say. It couldn't be helped – a gentleman rarely settled his accounts with any alacrity, but Gold held his notes in abundance of 500 sovereigns, and – as he knew – Rumford Gold always got paid.

"Sir Reeve, I do believe you've left our dear Mrs. Lacey quite disheveled; one might wonder if you wanted her husband to learn of your… alliance, flaunting it so openly."

"George already knows, you blackguard, so don't think of blackmailing me. The good Golonel is the one who lost her to me."

"I beg your pardon?"

"The other week, in a card game," Keith replied smugly. Let him make of that what he would, ha! Sir Keith Reeve did win hands of cards, sometimes – his bad luck was starting to change. "You'd know if you hadn't been off boxing or sheep-shearing, or whatever it is you Scottish chaps get up to."

The moment the words left his lips, he knew he'd gone too far. The infamous, golden handle of the older man's cane collided violently with his windpipe.

"I'd watch that tongue if I were you," he snarled, and Keith could see his crooked, gold-filled teeth hanging like the fangs of an animal.

"Y-yes.." Sir Reeve choked out, tongue thick and half-useless with alcohol.

He'd grounds to challenge the old wolf-hound now, Keith knew he had, and the legality of the practice was nothing to the guests of a secluded country house. If Gold died, then his debts would be forgiven and he'd be lauded the hero. But he'd only dueled once – in his youth – and lost, losing the regard of his lady in the bargain, so he took the bitter insult and drank it down.

Gold seemed to regard him for a moment, then eased off the cane. "We've accounts to settle. I'd like to know how you propose to pay me."

Bloody hell, but it was ungentlemanly of him to demand it so plainly.

"I… I don't know. I'll win tonight, and—"

"You've no income or allowance? No developing scheme? No hope of a windfall looming?"

"None, sir. And the estate won't pay out again until spring. When I win tonight, I'll…"

"Very well," Gold replied, sated. "You're a fortunate man tonight."

"Yes," Keith preened. He was fortunate. He was, he would be.

As Mr. Gold turned to leave, he brushed the shoulders of his jacket almost lazily and tossed the unfashionably long hair he favored to the side. Then he spoke.

"Oh, and I'll be having that marker you hold for Mrs. Lacey. Call it a good-faith payment, worth… oh, we shan't insult the lady. Let us say that she is worth 200 pounds, shall we?"

"You can't!" He'd been so close, could still remember the scent of rose-water and salt…

"I can, and I shall," said Gold, ushering him toward the writing desk where he was compelled to settle the claim in writing. Both men signed it, dusted the ink with a bit of pounce, and Gold returned to the party.

Sir Reeve could only scowl as he poured himself another drink.

III. Colonel Lacey

George scowled at his gaming partners – the lot of them pinks with too much to lose and little experience; it was just the sort of odds that Colonel Lacey liked. The dice were notoriously fickle ladies, but ladies to whom he'd happily devoted his life. The same could not be said of his wife.

The Colonel took stock of the room, noting poor Sir Henry asleep on the chaise longue as a gaggle of mistresses and wives gossiped over his lolling snores. The room could use some animation, it mustn't fall solely to their old host to keep the tables lively, and it was just such an opportunity as he'd been instructing Belle not to pass up. A song, a reel, or even a game would be just the thing to get the gentlemen back to gambling, but where was Mrs. Lacey? Abandoned him at the earliest opportunity to skulk in the billiards room, no doubt. He'd give her a cuff about the ear if she didn't make herself useful within the hour.

A bawdy tune, a full glass, and a winning hand… these were the simple pleasures of a gentleman-soldier. He was just about to excuse himself and find his hussy (who should know by now, if she weren't so obstinate, that she ought to deport herself more to his tastes) when none other than Mr. Rumford Gold drew up a chair.

"Might I join your game, Colonel?" he inquired, settling himself on the ornate furniture. The man's breeches did not strain to bend as some of the younger bucks' did – an essential detail to the tailoring when one intended to play all evening – and George very much hoped that Gold meant to sit and wager for a while.

"As you like," George replied, dipping a little snuff up to his face. It was devilishly perfumed stuff, but bracing, and the ladies did not care to be around cigar smoke, even in such mixed company. The other chaps lingering around the game seemed to sense that they'd swum out of their depth, and they made a quick exit as the proper men settled in to play.

Gold would fleece them all, the bleeding menace, if given half the chance, but the Colonel felt lucky.

"What do you say to a match of Conspirateurs for a change of pace?" Gold offered.

"I say damn the French and damn their games. It's Hazard or nothing."

"Aye, and damn their armies!" Gold agreed.

They both emptied their glasses, and George began to feel a little heady.

"It's a shame, a ruddy shame," he said, "that good English blood is spilling to put-down another Frenchie. I thought Robespierre might have done us a favor and sent the whole country to the guillotine."

"Well, certainly not the whole country. Your own wife is French, if I'm not mistaken?"

"And a worse mistake was never made. Blast it, though, she did have a devil of a dowry. No, Sir, you'll find my wife possesses all the natural weakness of her race and all the low cunning of her sex, but I've taught her to mind her place. By God, I have. Nothing's worse than a Frenchie."

"No French games, then; Hazard it is! And what will you wager me?" the Scotsman asked him.

"Will and odds stake of twenty pounds suffice?" the Colonel preened. He was up for the evening and in no short supply of funds – whatever the case. Twenty was bold, but not unwieldy, and he might persuade the old man to part with more as they increased the stakes.

"Why not forty?" Gold countered, and George felt lucky. He waved over one of Mrs. Millcroft's footmen and had the lad pour him another drink, dragged old Spencer up to bank, and had the tiger leave the decanter as his charm for the evening.

IV. Mrs. Lacey

Belle took another gulp of wine and eased herself up to the billiards table. She felt exposed; a lamb sheered for slaughter, striving to escape the abattoir. Imbibing helped. Every day since the war started she'd felt as though George meant to butcher her, yet even deprived of happiness and petticoats, she felt a tentative security with the heavy billiards cue in her palms.

George's behavior since retiring was meant as a punishment for her origins, she knew it was, but also knew (in her heart) that she and George had never been happy, it was only that they had not been together so frequently while he remained in service to his Majesty.

She almost winced to think of the sudden change, and the familiar weight of the cue felt very calming indeed. Belle imagined it was something akin to what a man felt holding a musket or a saber, and sorely wished for a chance to bollock Reeve with it.

Sadly, the cue was not meant for a cudgel, and it was her turn at carombole. The simple geometries of the green-felt table hearkened of Opticks and simple logic, the pleasures her youth. She took another drink to brace her, certain either George or Reeve would come looking for her in the next hour, and settled into teaching Lord Nolan's son a thing or two about strategy.

Sir James would enlist in a heartbeat, eager to wear the red as he seemed, but of course he could not. There was no other son to take his place, should he fall, and so all of the vicious energies so becoming in young officers turned toward more transient things. Within a few turns, Belle had him shuffling the rails like an awkward mooncalf in the ballroom, and she took the opportunity to survey the room.

To her surprise, neither the lascivious Sir Reeve nor her own boorish husband had come to strong-arm her; rather, one of George's gambling partners (a man more deplorable in deed and reputation than any of the other miscreants he associated with) had entered the room. Mr. Gold was watching her.

"A daring game for a lady, Madame," he commented in English prickled with the deep bellows of a Highland brogue. Belle adored the English accents, though she'd soured considerably toward the neat, clipped syllables of George and his ilk, but still – to ears which had heard only French during their formative years, it was beautiful. The slight lilt to her own voice still hearkened of something foreign, though she hoped anyone who did not know her would be hard-pressed to define it as Parisian.

"But she plays it mercilessly," replied Sir James, sparing her the necessity of speaking. It had bothered her, once, when people spoke over or for her. Now it meant only that she missed an opportunity for an altercation with George, and she'd embraced the opportunity to seldom speak. "She's skint me."

"Perhaps you would indulge an old man in a game, Mrs. Lacey?"

Belle knew the rest; all of Cora's orgies would eventually fall to women in laps, clandestine giggling, and gowns draped over divans. No man with so dark and hungry a look in his eye had ever wanted anything like a game of billiards from her, and Belle gripped her cue-stick tighter. The question, then, was whether she would be safer if she refused him.

"By your leave, Sir James?" he added, making a little bow to her inept partner.

"Well, I—" started James, but he was startled by a livid Miss Cline stomping into the room, and she dragged him away before consent or contention could be given. Somewhere in the house men were shouting, and Belle could only hope that the fracas would keep her husband entertained.

"A game, then," Belle agreed, suddenly totally alone with the gentleman.

They began their game in relative silence, each sizing up the other, though to his credit his eyes did not linger over-long on her form. For his part, Mr. Gold looked every inch powerful. His clothes suited him, his presence preceded him, and he played brilliantly. She was shocked to find, when he drew alongside her, that the compact economy of his form made him appear taller – in reality he stood only a few inches above her; his face was close.

"Are you happy in England, Mrs. Lacey?" he whispered, warm brown eyes piercing her blue ones. "It must be terribly difficult for you with the rest of your family in France."

"Honestly, I prefer England, I think. I came here when I was young, and married George when I turned sixteen. My father died, so you see… it's just the Colonel and me."

She gulped down more wine to keep the tears at bay; the Reign of Terror's shadow was a long, sour ordeal, but her father was clever and had her safe when they sacked the Bastille.

"Colonel Lacey is a heavy-hand, I think," replied Gold. The words had the slight caress of a question in them. "No one would blame you for wanting to return there one day."

The warmth that had threatened to blossom on Belle's cheeks chilled immediately. He was testing her! The wretch was testing her loyalty, probably on George's orders! It was all part of some new, nauseating game. She knew Gold was a callous, merciless sort of man, but she'd never thought he could be so cruel.

She felt her face twist into the familiar visage of apathy, even as her heart clenched and her stomach roiled.

"The Colonel and I are very happy."

"I must say, I prefer France myself. Paris in winter, Marseilles by the sea…"

"I wouldn't know."

"No, I suppose not. If it's not too indelicate, Mrs. Lacey, I was hoping that you might allow me to show you something," said Gold, reaching into his breast pocket.

She winced despite herself, but he produced only a small scrap of paper with a few scrawling lines jotted on it.

"I took this off of Reeve this evening. He tells me that your husband wagered your favors in a card game."

Belle clutched her cue about the base and tried not to look frantically toward the door, toward escape. She could slam the butt onto the leg he nursed and run if she had to.

"Unfortunately, my favors are not among the King's recognized currencies. I'm afraid George has quite forgotten, in delight with my dowry, that I am not a bank."

"And yet you remain virtuous."

"Yes. We are married," she said, mustering all the conviction she could for what was meant to be a sacred and beautiful union, an institution meant to be honored. "I am no adulteress, and I'll thank you to tell George not to send his friends in his stead to insult me."

"I meant no insult, my lady, and I'm not your husband's friend. I only wanted to return this to your keeping. I hope you will forgive me for speaking of it, but I thought you might rest easier knowing your company was not… expected by Sir Reeve."

Belle fought to retain her composure as Mr. Gold clumsily excused himself from the room. She wasn't sure if she wanted to have a drink or scream, but the strange sensation of smiling again brought a hopeful comfort to her.

V. Lord Nolan

As the night wore on, Spencer excused himself from the gaming. He neither valued nor cultivated his reputation as a sober, severe one, who tolerated all manner of debauchery without partaking, but it made him popular as a card-dealer and dice-bank, which served his devices. The role paid, a gratuity among gentlemen settled with no real alacrity, and if his estates were stumbling then at least he remained in pocket for the necessities.

It was a shame about Jimmy's extravagances, but that – he supposed – was the natural result of rearing him with governesses and nannies. Want of a mother to illustrate the perils of household economy was hardly the boy's fault, was it? Besides, he hadn't the heart to deny James, and a secret proclivity for trade with a notoriously rich Greek kept them afloat.

Nearing the end of his life, Spencer found could tolerate the blow to the family name if their association with trade became public knowledge; leaving his son with nothing and parceling off their lands, though – that was untenable. Legacies mattered, individual infractions did not.

Still, he would have to look toward securing Jimmy a wife. The desire for a long and prosperous bachelorhood was a well-vetted vice; Spencer should have set a better example, so the lad would have more incentive to get in a family way.

James' Miss Clime was, thankfully, not the type of woman a gentleman married; she made a fair sporting partner in the field, a huntress the game tables, and possessed fair features with a good figure by anyone's reckoning, but she was no Baroness. He could not see her sitting patiently to listen as the servants voiced their needs. Lady Nolan had been an angel, incomparable to the likes of Mrs. Millcroft or Mrs. Lacey. Slatternly women like them belonged in village taverns and brothels, not presiding over the great houses of the county.

It had passed three in the morning, and he'd not seen James in nearly an hour. The lad did have his vices, and Spencer toyed with the thought of teaching through suffering. He could refuse to pay his son's debts; he could force the boy to marry and sober, or face poverty, but he knew his son. James was entirely too impulsive for that, he'd be enlisted and shooting at Frenchmen within the week.

A yawn jarred Spencer from his thoughts. It wouldn't do to excuse himself to rest too early, but he could scarcely stomach the draping embraces and intimacies which so often evolved from Cora's contemptible parties.

"I see you've spent another night playing bank," remarked Gold's voice from somewhere behind him.

"Indeed. I didn't hear you come in, my friend. Care to rest your weary bones with me? It seems the rest of the party has left us old boys behind this evening," Spencer replied. He liked Gold, generally. The man had a good head for numbers, and he didn't let his emotions get in the way of business arrangements or gentlemen's agreements. It was better that way – clearer cut, and less likely to lead to bankruptcy.

"The whole country has left us old boys behind, and shipped our sons off to France to die."

"Not my son," he replied. It was a terse subject – he'd nearly forgotten that Mr. Neal Gold had enlisted to fight.

"No, you're quite right. Still, though, I imagine someone's found the profit in War, a way to navigate blood and money without losing rest at night. They wouldn't continue the dratted thing if it wasn't good to somebody, would they? Prinny could go duel Bonaparte, and we'd all raise-up the Tricolore and play La Marseillaise by sunrise."

Spencer had to chuckle at that. Odd's fish, but Gold was probably right.

"War's an awful mess, and expensive. If you wager on the winner, you might as well be playing dice. The supply-lines, though… I imagine they've got the best of all sides," Lord Nolan replied. Perhaps he could convince Gold to invest? That would certainly do him some good with his partners, wouldn't it?

"And you don't play dice, do you?" observed Gold, as though he were seeing him for the very first time. "Just the bank."

"Just so," Spencer agreed. "Though I'm glad enough when the game comes to an end. I'm old and tired, it's a young man's vice."

"War or dice?" asked Gold.

"Both, I suppose. It's all I can do to keep James out of the fray. The boy's got his mother's spirit, and none of her good sense." That was the truth too, no matter how hard it was to admit.

"If you don't mind me saying, Spence, I think you've quite failed to keep him out of the dice halls," and they both shared a chuckle over it.

"I'll settle for keeping him out of the one that can kill him, then; though those high-spirited bucks are more likely to pull a pistol over nonsense, if given half the chance, than some officer sitting in his tent. Dreadful, simply dreadful. Old George goes off in the head, puts an end to dueling, and suddenly it becomes the fad with Prinny."

"They are always doing what we tell them not to," Gold agreed somberly. Spencer felt for him then, really he did. It must be terrible to have his child so far removed from him, unsure whether or not he'd met a gristly, violent end.

He was about to bring the subject back around to investment when his son (and all his son's friends) trooped into the house – all of them shouting like wild men from somewhere in the foyer.

"Speak of the devils," Spencer said.

"Aye," agreed Gold, and they rushed out to join the fray.